


Saunter Vaguely Sideways

by crystalrequiem



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Anxious Aziraphale, Hanahaki themed, Hurt Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Love as Poison to Demons, M/M, Major Illness, ace characters, ace romance, but without the actual Hanahaki part, mix of book and TV cannon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-05-14 11:17:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19272193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalrequiem/pseuds/crystalrequiem
Summary: Love is poison to any demon who feels it. Crowley's used Hell as the antidote these last six thousand years. He can't do that anymore, for reasons having to do with a certain apocalypse-that-wasn't. Things spiral helplessly from there.(Crowley feels the weight of a new impending deadline, time marching toward his own personal end. Aziraphale frets whenever Crowley lets him and feels utterly powerless in the face of this--whatever it is. He doesn't know. Crowley won't tell him.)





	1. Rude Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> Yo!
> 
> Should I be writing this right now?  
> Absolutely not!
> 
> I have a lot of big projects coming up, so this will have to take a backseat and sit when we get to July.
> 
> That said, I've got a major writing bug for it right now, so I'm just gonna keep going till I need to stop. I just had the deepest longing for "I love you so much it might kill me," feels, with a little "love conquers all" and "We're on *our* side now," thrown in for good measure. 
> 
> Haven't totally settled on the title yet, but it's what popped into my head as I was writing. Suggestions welcome.
> 
> Also haven't figured out how to format footnotes yet; please bear with my clumsy attempts. Footnotes are listed between scene cuts for now.

* * *

  
Crowley wakes that morning feeling…. Off. Fuzzy. Like he might have forgotten to sober up last night, and now he has to deal with the slightest bit of a hangover. His head pounds—only when he moves too quickly—and a general sense of achy malaise threads his frame. He thinks little of it at first. He _had_ drunk just a few too many glasses (or bottles) of a very fine year of _Pinot Gris_ last night; the blaring lights and edge of dizziness don’t strike him as altogether strange.

He wallows fondly in what he thinks of as a hangover, pleased by the sheer physicality of it. Only a scattering of months has marched past since the not-quite-apocalypse—barely a drop in the perception of a millennia-old being—and he hasn’t grown to take the concept of corporeality for granted just yet. He decides to indulge in his usual vices and return to the embrace of sleep.

Sleep never lost its charm. Perhaps with the end of the world already past, it never will.

The second time he wakes, the light permeating his windows casts his room in street-lamp orange. The sky just visible through the slats of his blinds seems far too dark, and his phone rings insistently. He feels just as uncomfortably hung-over as the first awakening. At _this_ point, he begins to worry slightly. Hangovers don’t usually linger so long. He hadn’t drunk enough for that. He tries to puzzle things out, body aching and thoughts crawling at a snail’s pace, only to recognize that the phone has never once ceased ringing.

Crowley pours himself out of the sheets and slinks across the floor like a – himself. The call goes to voicemail, drops, and immediately starts ringing again in the time it takes for him to reach the handset. Only one person in the whole world calling him like _that_. Crowley fumbles with the receiver before the damn thing can ring again and worsen his building headache.

 “Angel,” he croaks, surprised by the sleep-heavy timber of his own voice. The back of his skull throbs at the crest of the word.

“Crowley! Thank—Somebody. You missed a—you didn’t show up for—I thought something had happened to you.” Aziraphale puffs, sounding fully worked-up. Crowley pictures him, the worried line between his eyebrows, the way he fiddles anxiously with the receiver as he talks, his light hair tugged all out of place. _Ah, angel_ , he thinks, over-fond, and winces as his headache redoubles.

“I missed something?” he repeats, sliding down to sit on the floor.

“You…” The angel struggles for words. Crowley can hear the way his anxiety transforms with every syllable, worry giving way to suspicion. “you were supposed to drive us to dinner an hour ago.”

“Oh.” That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. They had dinner plans for Friday. When he’d slipped into bed after their night with the Pinot Gris it had been Tuesday[1]… He stares down at his dimly-lit floor and tries to add this new information to the confusion already bubbling in his aching head. 

“Are you quite alright, my dear boy? You sound… strange.” Aziraphale’s sincere concern plucks at something just behind Crowley’s ribcage—an old twinge of longing he grew used to long ago. He scarcely notices. He has six thousand years’ practice ignoring that particular ache. His favorite, idiot angel, worrying himself silly over the demon meant to be his adversary. Only Aziraphale, he thinks fondly, and the pain of his headache overwhelms him for an instant.

“Ow.”

“Crowley?!” Concern edges toward panic in the angel’s voice. He can’t have that at all. He never meant to make Aziraphale fret over him, he should—

Another jolt of pain, smaller this time but there nonetheless. He begins to understand what has happened with a sinking certainty. Maybe he’s wrong. He _hopes_ he’s wrong, but…

“That’s it. Stay right where you are, I’m on my way.” Aziraphale sounds terrified, and Crowley blesses himself soundly. He’s begging the cosmos to be wrong, but if he isn’t, the angel can never know of this. Not. Ever. He breathes through his nose and wills himself to sit straighter on the floor.

“No, no—no need for that, angel. I’m fine, just— I think I overslept.”

“ _Overslept_ ,” the principality echoes. The single word drips with enough disdain to set Crowley wincing once again. Aziraphale never had approved of his century-long nap.

“Yes! Overslept. Forgot to sober up after that bit with the _Pinot Gris_ and thought I’d sleep off the headache.” The best part is, he doesn’t even have to lie.

“That was three days ago!”

“So it was! Longer than I intended to sleep, hence; ‘Overslept.’” This earns him a deep, long-suffering sigh he can’t help but to find endearing. Another spike of hurt lances his skull. _Shit shit shit._

“Well it doesn’t seem to have helped you much. You sounded in a right state when you finally picked up. Are you certain you’re okay?”

_Not at all,_ he thinks, safe in his own thoughts. “Tickety-boo” he says aloud instead. Aziraphale huffs, making his eye-roll felt over the airwaves. He’s going to call Crowley’s bluff, he can just feel it. He has to misdirect the man somehow and go figure this out. The angel starts to say something. Crowley cuts him off “Look, I’m sorry I flubbed dinner. I really didn’t think I’d sleep so long. Let me make it up to you, alright? I’ll grab the wine and meet you at the shop in ten.”

“No.”

“No?” the lonely ache trapped within the cage of his ribs twinges enough to drive any thoughts of headache away. “Angel, I—I really _didn’t_ mean to, I—”

“I’ll not have you speeding through London in that death-trap of yours with a hangover. That would be irresponsible. _I’ll_ grab the wine and meet you at _your_ flat. Not that you need more to drink. Really, Crowley. A three-day hangover? You must have been drinking for _quite_ some time after I left.”

“Well, a demon has to indulge his vices occasionally, doesn’t he?” Crowley steps into the opening Aziraphale lends him and lies. Relief sinks through his form as he recognizes Aziraphale bears no grudge for missing their date, followed quickly by another shiver of hurt. He should put the angel off his path, he knows. If this is what he thinks it is… “Are you sure you want to come here? You don’t like my flat. We could always—”

“Yes, dear, I’m sure. However much I like your flat, I happen to like you far better. I’m not about to chase you out of your own home feeling under the weather.”

‘ _I happen to like you,’_ his mind paraphrases, latching on to the words and letting them sit, warm and cozy right next to the millennia-old ache in his soul. Crowley shivers through a sharp spasm of pain, increasingly frantic. He should make an excuse now—feign sick and beg off—run, do _something._

“I can be there in half an hour with the buses. Don’t go back to sleep.”

“I won’t,” he promises, blessing mentally all the while. Crowley hangs up, afraid of what else he might be tempted to say. The migraine building just behind his eyes finally blossoms into painful reality.

He knows what this is. He really does and he really _hopes_ to G-S-Someone that he’s wrong, but he knows one way to tell. Tripping over flashbacks and his own bedsheets, he tumbles toward the bathroom and miracles his shirt away. His hands slam against the sink counter as he leans gracelessly against it. He squints at his own chest in the mirror, pulling his glasses further down his nose to see unhindered. Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe he drank a whole liquor cabinet and doesn’t remember- maybe--

The tiny, grey spiderweb veins he expects to see are there when he looks, barely visible beneath the skin across his chest. Poisoned blood, branching out from his heart.

 “Fuck,” Crowley summarizes to himself with enthusiasm, sliding back down to sit on the hard tile floor. He is rather unfortunately not hungover after all.  

* * *

1\. If one wants to get technical, he’d collapsed atop his sheets after a pleasant night of drinking very early Wednesday Morning.

 

* * *

 

It is a well-known fact that love is selfless.

It is only slightly less well known that selflessness is virtuous, and slightly-less-than- _that_ well known that virtue and demons do not mix well. Through the power of transitive properties, one might thereby discern that love does not play nicely with demons.

One would be right.

Love, real love, is poison to any demon who feels it. Not that most would know; the vast majority never have to experience it.[2]  Those few who start to feel the dreaded symptoms of love often pursue self-preservation over paramour and avoid the objects of their affections until the feeling fades. 

Still, as the alchemist Paracelsus once said, “The dose makes the poison.”  Paracelsus was a bit of a prick, but his oft-quoted statement applies, nonetheless. Demons have little trouble with love in small doses. The very idea frightens most demons so badly that they avoid experiments. But if they _had_ experimented, they might learn a few important facts. First, the more powerful the demon, the less the virtue harms them. Second, hell’s ambient energies generally heal past what love can damage.[3]

Crowley, Serpent of Eden himself, drifts toward the powerful side of the scale. No duke, certainly, but as an equal to one of heaven’s Principalities he is also no slouch. So long as he re-visits hell every few months and re-charges, he has absolutely no need to worry about the ill-advised, six-thousand-year-spanning dose of unadulterated, unrequited love lurking in his heart. None whatsoever.

…dear reader, I hope you begin to see the problem.

 

* * *

2\. Important outliers include Azazel, a fallen who fell for love of a human woman and later took credit for teaching swordplay and the use of makeup to mankind. (Swordplay was, of course, the fault of a certain Principality of the East Gate. But Azazel really had gone all-in on the makeup.) Azazel’s love for his wife ate away at his demonic nature, but her mortality left him in no real danger. She died before his love of her could kill him.

3\. It is a much-less-well-known fact that due to Hell’s demon restorative properties, several romances between demons exist in hell entirely unaware of their own afflictions. These demons are in for a nasty shock if they ever pop earth-side.

 

 


	2. Ameliorate, Obfuscate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale is too clever to leave him completely in the dark... but he doesn't need to know everything, does he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, Hi, What's up?  
> this got a lot more attention than I expected and I adore every single one of you.
> 
> Banged this chapter out even though it wound up WAY longer than it was going to be because ya'll are sweethearts.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

* * *

  
In the beginning there was a garden, and in that garden, a tree. Like as not, you’ve heard the tale a hundred times before: how a snake made trouble. How afterward, he crawled his way to the Eastern Wall and watched the first rainfall beneath the wing of an angel who no longer held a sword.

At that time, his name was Crawly. It had been something else Before, a name barred from him alongside many other once-beloved things. That name no longer fit. Crawly didn’t either, but he hadn’t decided what to change it to yet. So, for then he was Crawly, Snake of Eden and Temptation to man.

He’d come to the Angel as Crawly then, not knowing what to expect in return. Flash of flame and steel and a few unkind words? Maybe. He would have let the angel take the swing. He may even have hoped for it. He’d slithered toward the possibility of an end with scarcely an understanding of what it meant. Apples and orders aside, he longed for an answer to the ache in the core of his being, deep and terrible, yawning like a chasm in the wake of his fall… But the sword was gone, and when the angel’s wing rose to shelter him from the first storm, he felt something like grace dawning anew.

It wasn’t love at first sight. Not quite. Not _yet—_ only the seed of love, planted in the heart of a demon. It grew and flourished in retrospect as Crawly, later Crowley, played the scene over and over in his thoughts. Aziraphale the principality, who should have been his enemy. Who should have faced him with blazing steel and gave him indulgent philosophical conversation instead. Who doubted, and worried, and looked anxiously after the creation he’d been told to chase away.

Aziraphale, an angel so _honestly_ good that he’d sheltered a demon against the rain with his own wings without prompting or second thought.

With that memory alone he could have fallen all over again, but Aziraphale gave him more with each passing year. He found in the angel his meet and his match in every way—a being who actually bothered to _think_ about the world around him, someone who valued the comforts of earth and the light of humanity, who could be stubborn as a mule when it suited him. Crowley doesn’t know when that first seed blossomed into the poison of love, but it certainly didn’t take long.

Initially, he thought he must have incurred some new punishment from on high. The headaches were certainly hellish enough: slowly growing to blinding and oddly worse whenever he thought of the Principality of the East Gate. Pain, weakness, burning veins and a twisting in his gut—all of it accompanied by that worrisome spiderweb of black blood expanding from the center of his chest.

He figured out that visits to hell helped before he really understood the cause. Certain something must have cursed him, he’d spent a fortnight combing through hell trying to ferret out which one of his fellow fallen hated him enough to do it, only to feel less terrible with each passing day. By the time he surfaced topside empty-handed with orders to move on, his illness had retreated to the barest ache. His symptoms kept returning, of course. But once he understood Hell could serve as a palliative, he had far less trouble with them. If he stepped back down often enough, he didn’t have to deal with them at all.

Well. _Almost_ at all. Aziraphale could set him off. One too many errant smiles from the angel were all it took to set his head aching all over again. The pattern made itself obvious. He’d thought for a single, utterly dismal week that his angel might have cursed him intentionally and hated himself for it. Of course, the angel had run into him trying to drink his sorrows into submission and sounded so _genuinely_ concerned that he’d discarded the notion.

“The Illness” just became a—thing. A thing that happened to Crowley, apparently. Because of Aziraphale. He could have tried to run or hide from the angel then, he supposed… but he hated the very idea. Conversations with the principality had become something irreplaceable. Besides, frequent visits to hell didn’t pose a major obstacle; it wasn’t as if this… whatever it was actually did him any lasting harm.

By the time he put two and two together between the gossip about Azazel[1] and his own symptoms, he couldn’t turn back. Perhaps the Almighty never meant for demons to love, but Crowley doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to respecting God’s wishes anyhow. Besides, he doesn’t know how to stop. He doesn’t _want_ to. Somewhere between the Garden and Golgotha Aziraphale had become too much a reason for his existence to excise, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Eventually it fades to background noise—something he only remembers on the uncommon occasion he misses a check-in Downstairs. He doesn’t think of it through the whole debacle of the antichrist. Why should he? He hadn’t known they would survive at all, let alone that Hell might no longer accept him. He doesn’t think of it after he and the angel pull off their body swap either—too pleased with himself and happy to face the boundless future with the angel on his side. On _their_ side. He hasn’t felt truly laid low by his Illness since… well, the 14th century at least. Of _course_ he hadn’t thought much about it.

(He’s thinking about it now.)

* * *

 

 

[1] The fallen who fell for love of his mortal wife. He hadn’t stuck around on earth after her death, or Crowley might have talked to the demon himself. Rumor was, the fellow had locked himself deep within hell and hadn’t taken visitors in millennia. Shame. It would have been nice to commiserate.

 

* * *

 

He hasn’t finished panicking by the time Aziraphale arrives, almost exactly 30 minutes after he’d hung up the phone. He feels it the instant the angel miracles his way past the front lock and steps into the building, tripping Crowley’s peripheral awareness and shaking him out of his stupor just enough to remember he should put a shirt back on.

He twists the fabric of a suave, black button down back into place, leaving its collar high just in case. What is he going to do? What will he say? He hasn’t had to face the consequences of this particular malediction in so long; he has not even the first inkling of an emergency measure in place.

Crowley fights to mull through a plan, hyper aware of every step closer Aziraphale takes like a second sense.  The angel drifts into the elevator, rides up to the hall outside his flat... He can’t tell Aziraphale the truth. Even if he knows nothing else, he knows that. Not just because Aziraphale doesn’t feel the same way—probably can’t, in all honesty.[2] Whatever he is to the angel, he knows Aziraphale cares about him on some level. Likes him well enough that he doesn’t like the idea of Crowley in pain, at the very least. And the _last_ thing Crowley needs is for Aziraphale to pity him out of some kind of misguided guilt for winning his affection. 

He just has to—fake wellness. Somehow. Long enough to figure out how to get into hell.

Right. Just find a way to slide into hell after pissing off Satan and making a fool of Beelzebub at their own show court. Won’t be a problem at all! He’ll jaunt right through the front door.

He annoys _himself_ with his own sarcasm, trying not to focus too hard on the feel of Aziraphale walking through the hall to his door. (He can almost hear each certain footstep.) Maybe he can come up with something else. Maybe there’s a back door he can find or a mainline of hellish energy somewhere. Do those exist? If they do, he bets that witch girl, Anathema, would know. Maybe if he drives the M25 enough times a week or… he doesn’t know. He _doesn’t know_. What if there isn’t anything…?

If there isn’t anything… all the more important Aziraphale never understands. Better that he doesn’t know—until the very end, one way or another.  He must absolutely _never_ know if love for him finally manages to kill Crowley for good. The demon will take _any_ bargain to keep him safe from that kind of misery.

As if summoned, Aziraphale knocks just twice against the cool slate paint of the front door. Crowley heaves a dry swallow, nerves making him sicker than the poison does.

“It’s not locked,” he croaks, and tries not to look as if he’s been leaning too hard against the bathroom counter.  He slides his way through the penthouse towards the entrance, trying to leave his headache behind to no avail. The Principality of the Eastern Gate swings into his apartment as if he owns it, and Crowley’s breath catches somewhere behind his ribs.

“Three _days_ , my dear, really!” The angel’s worked himself into a right state on the way over; he blusters in already fretting. “Far be it from me to criticize you for a little over-indulgence, but for _three days worth of hangover_ —Oh.” He catches sight of Crowley after he finishes closing the door and forgets whatever admonishment he intended to deliver. As usual, he looks like a very smartly dressed history fanatic—hair swept wildly out of place by anxious fingers and hands stained with ink.[3] In his arms, he carries two bottles of a very expensive Burgundy Crowley hasn’t seen the likes of since before the Second World War.

In other words, Aziraphale walks through the front door and his very image reminds Crowley how much he loves him all over again. Fussy, considerate, anxious, stubborn angel—impossible _not_ to love him, really.

Crowley’s migrane _throbs_.

“H-ello to you too,” he stumbles on the words, overstimulated by pain. He really _is_ out of practice with this. He doesn’t remember it progressing so quickly last time he spent a few days too long without returning Downstairs. He remembers nursing a terrible, mounting headache for a month straight in the Middle Ages at one point, and Aziraphale hadn’t noticed a thing.

…must be losing his touch.

“Oh Crowley, you look positively miserable.” Two bottles of impossible Burgundy make identical thuds as the angel sets them down on Crowley’s desk, lips pursed with worry. “Sit down, there you go, dear boy.” He pulls Crowley away from the wall and pushes him toward the sofa instead, utterly ignorant of the effect his undisguised concern has on the poor demon. “I do wish you wouldn’t do this to yourself.”

“Not so bad, really,” he manages to protest. “The fun part’s always worth the crash.” Aziraphale tuts at him, and peels off that familiar coat, laying it over the gilded chair Crowley likes best. He spares a thought for how well he likes that sight—little marks of Aziraphale’s presence in the midst of Crowley’s space. The chasm of longing in his chest yawns a little wider.

By the time he remembers himself Aziraphale has already helped himself to the electric kettle and started making tea.

“If this is how you look now, I shudder to think what you must have looked like Wednesday morning. Little wonder you… Overslept.” The soothing smell of Darjeeling cuts through his aching thoughts and he has to wrestle a besotted smile back into the void. Crowley had never liked the stuff. Started keeping it around like a good luck charm years ago in the hopes that maybe Aziraphale might eventually come visit his flat. So of course that’s what he makes.

 _You’re not making this easy, Angel,_ he wants to grouse, but that smile hasn’t quite stopped threatening to appear yet so he keeps his mouth shut and says only, “Hm.”

Aziraphale rushes back to his side a few moments later with two steaming teacups, sparing a thought to miracle one of Crowley’s side tables in from the bedroom to use as a tea-tray.

“Thought you were in the mood for wine,” the old snake tries to tease, cradling the teacup in his hand. He never thought this tea set would actually wind up in use. Watching Aziraphale blow steam and take a sip is like a miracle in and of itself.

He fights back another wince.

“No, not tonight I think. You’ve had more than enough for the both of us recently, it would seem.”

“It _would_ seem.” Though the seeming be wrong…

Aziraphale’s eyes narrow. He opens his mouth to protest, thinks better of it and takes a long draw of hot tea before setting it back against the nightstand. He opens his mouth again, that solid steel hidden inside him brought to the fore.

“Let me miracle it away.”

“What?” Crowley hasn’t moved past the ‘holding your teacup and enjoying the warmth’ stage of tea drinking yet, and it’s a good thing too or he would have spat Darjeeling across the room.

“Your… ‘hangover.’ Let me miracle it away,” He should have caught the strange way Aziraphale pondered the word “hangover,” but his mind had stuck on the sudden and perfectly mundane realization/remembrance that his best friend, in fact, had magical healing powers. “I know you have your ridiculous pride when it comes to drinking, but you’re worrying me, Crowley. I haven’t seen you this out of it since… _maybe_ the fourteenth century. At a stretch.” Not much of a stretch, considering Crowley had thought of the exact same episode just a half-hour earlier.

Would that… work?

Way back in the beginning, back when he thought this malady a curse he hadn’t earned, he’d tried miracling himself free. It had never helped. But at least according to their prescribed natures, healing should come easier to Aziraphale. And Perhaps… perhaps because it acted as poison to demons, demonic miracles could not undo the damage love wrought.  

If the angel could heal the damage faster than Crowley could kill himself loving him for it, maybe he didn’t have to worry about Hell or Aziraphale learning the truth or… any of it. Maybe he can still have the eternity he wants, there by Aziraphale’s side in whatever form the angel wants him. (The pain of his longing resonates from his skull down his full spine at the thought.)

Well shit…. What does he have to lose?

“Sure,” he breathes, interrupting the first word of Aziraphale’s next argument. The angel sits there for a moment, staring in disbelief at his easy acceptance.

“Oh dear. My dear, you do _worry_ me so.”  Crowley watches him fiddle nervously with the ends of his sleeves before he rolls them up—manages to stifle a whimper when Aziraphale reaches out and pulls his glasses away. The light has no mercy. Tears rise unbidden in over-sensitive eyes. He thinks he hears Aziraphale stutter out a litany of apologies and something about migraines, but he has trouble processing reality for more than a few seconds. He _hears_ the tell-tale click of his glasses against the surface of the side table, but can’t see a damn thing past the water in his eyes. Before he can re-order the world into some sort of sense, he feels Aziraphale’s hands rest on either side of his face, and then—

And then—

And then it doesn’t work.

Well, it sort of works. The migraine retreats. Aziraphale tries to heal it outright at first, discovers he can’t, and simply blocks Crowley from feeling its effects instead, like the world’s holiest painkiller. In the space of barely two breaths Crowley _floods_ with relief, leaning stupidly into the angel’s touch.

“Oh, thank G-…. You.” He sighs, distantly aware that he’s made a huge mistake somewhere. The air rings empty, missing a beat where Aziraphale should have chided him for blasphemy, and doesn’t.  Crowley chances cracking one eye open to get a look at his personal savior. Oh. Oh he doesn’t like the look on the angel’s face.

“That,” Aziraphale bites, “is not a hangover.” He looks absolutely furious, in a tired, terrified way—like Crowley’s just asked him for a canteen of holy water all over again. He guides Crowley back to rest against the couch, gentle despite his anger, and traces a line he can’t see from the demon’s temple to his chest. In that horrified instant, he thinks maybe Aziraphale _knows_. 

Aziraphale is too clever. How does he keep forgetting? Isn’t that one of the things he loves about his angel? He can catch Crowley at any game.

“Ah. Well. Maybe,” the demon backpedals, swinging from relief to panic in the space of a few seconds. The angel doesn’t seem interested in playing along. He keeps his fingers pressed to Crowley’s heart, right at the source. Crowley gasps when Aziraphale tries to heal him a second time, tentative and wary of flooding a demon’s heart with holy power. “Angel, the bit with the migraine was brilliant, but don’t—maybe just don’t worry about the rest.”

“Crowley,” he winces at the terrible cocktail of emotions threaded through his best friend’s voice—worry and frustration and betrayal. Sure hands keep contact with the demon’s chest, as if Aziraphale could trace the dark veins there without seeing them. Perhaps he could. “What is this?”

Lie—he _has to_ lie. He hasn’t lied to Aziraphale in a millennia—not really, not where it matters—but he has to do it now. He wracks his brain for something—blindsided by the second chance to keep the angel ignorant of reality. “Did H—Did Downstairs send someone after you? Were you attacked? Why wouldn’t you tell me—”

“No, No,” Because however convenient the excuse, it would drive a wedge between them and there has to be something _easier…_ and then it dawns on him…. “It’s just… you know. A different kind of Falling.” The words come half-unbidden, not altogether untrue. It _is_ like the miserable torture of his first Fall. Just slowed down over a much longer scale with no escape waiting on the other side. And love itself is a type of fall, at a stretch anyway. “Our plan worked like anything, Hell will leave me alone—they’re far too scared not to—but they kicked me out right back and it’s starting to have an effect.”

Crowley has to take a moment and pause, pleased and half-shocked with his own cleverness. He’s managed to give Aziraphale a misleading answer without lying at all.

“Like _Falling_?” The angel echoes, clearly alarmed, and maybe he hasn’t thought this through as well as he should have. “What happens to you if you Fall _twice?_ What are you falling _towards_?”

 _You_ , he thinks, and wow, that is _strange_ to know the thought should hurt and be able to feel blessed nothing. “Who could say.” He offers flippantly instead. Aziraphale pulls both hands back to cross his arms over his chest.

“Crowley, take this seriously. You’re—what if you… discorporate. Or _worse_.”

“Then I suppose I won’t have to worry about it any longer either way.”

“Crowley!” Oops. He hadn’t meant to say that one out loud. 

“Aziraphale!” he pretends to shout back in turn, with a stubborn smile. The angel does _not_ return it. Crowley reaches out with a still-shaky hand and lifts his cooling tea to his lips. Tastes just as terrible as he remembers.  “I don’t intend to go down without a fight, if it helps.”

“You have a plan?”

“In a manner of speaking…” He has half a notion to talk to Anathema about demon-flavored leylines, drive the Bentley around the M25 for a day and snoop around for a backdoor to hell. These are all plans, loosely defined. They totally count. 

Aziraphale doesn’t look like he believes a whit of it.

“And where do I factor into this ‘plan’ of yours?” he presses, arms still crossed defensively. He grasps his forearms as an anxious tic, angelic strength leaving red welts along the skin. Crowley sits his teacup back down and reaches out, loosening Aziraphale’s grip and chancing a little of his own demonic power to soothe what damage he can see. He lets his fingertips linger a moment too long on the last faded abrasion in a moment of weakness. 

“Well that pain trick of yours will help _immeasurably_ ,” he allows, after the silence stretches too long.

The angel groans, and buries his face in his hands, Crowley sits and waits for him to recover his senses, not sure what to say. “Look, the plan is—it’s a work in progress. I’m still thinking it through. When I get all the details down, you’ll be the first to know.” Aziraphale only shakes his head, shoulders trembling just once with something that might be a laugh or a sob. The angel’s painkiller aside, Crowley’s heart aches at the sight. He hears a wet breath, watches Aziraphale recompose himself with a shake of his head.

“No _you_ look,” he starts, staring straight into Crowley’s wide eyes. “This world… I love this world, I fought alongside you to keep it, but it would never mean as much to me without you in it. Have a care to stay, won’t you?”

 _Well, I’ll not last long with you saying such things,_ the demon thinks to himself, suddenly unable to breathe.

“For you, Angel? All the care in the universe.” 

Is that too much? It feels too much. He worries it’s too close to the truth right up until Aziraphale sighs hopelessly at him and marches back to the desk for the Burgundy. “Decided to hit up the bottle after all?”

“Well, it’s come to light you need a plan,” he grouches, struggling just for a moment with the cork before giving up and miracling the things open. “Can’t remember the last time we came up with a good plan sober.” The angel starts to wander back to the kitchen for wine glasses, takes another look at the demon sitting mussed and still honestly a little out of it on the couch, and just grabs both bottles to bring back to the sofa.

In spite of himself, Crowley laughs. Threat of death breathing down his neck, drink in hand and a best friend to meet them both with—how terribly, wonderfully familiar.

* * *

[2] Some of the fallen fell purely because they were angels who fell in love, or so the story goes. This leads Crowley to his conclusion; that Angels cannot be _in_ love, because to do so would invite a fall, and therefore invalidate their status as angel. Please forgive him his logic. He doesn’t yet understand that those who fell did so because love shook their faith. Not all angels face the same dilemma, but this is not a fact well-advertised. Love doesn’t poison angels, but in general the powers upstairs don’t have the time to entertain it.

[3] He must have been taking notes on some dusty tome or other when he finally managed to get ahold of Crowley. While he keeps fastidious electronic accounts on his blocky, ancient computer, Aziraphale still hasn’t moved away from paper note keeping. Crowley tries to convince him to think of the poor trees to no avail. He may adapt to change faster than his angelic brethren, but his pace still lags leagues behind most humans… Or perhaps Crowley really is too fast in all things after all.

 


	3. The Writing on the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley looks at all the options he hasn't got and comes to resolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor warnings for...... not really suicidal thoughts, but. Death acceptance? I suppose that's the best way to describe it. 
> 
> Thank you all a hundred, hundred times again for all the love you've showered on this fic. 
> 
> I'm trying to stick very closely to my outline so that it has a chance of being finished, so it feels a little clumsy to me at times. Still! I really, really hope you continue to enjoy. 
> 
> We've reached the half way point! :D POV switch next chapter~ but it might have to wait a bit longer to come out.
> 
> *Next day edit: Typo removal <3

 

* * *

 

Far, far back, before the beginning, there was an awful Row among the powers that be, and Heaven and Hell had both emerged into existence.

Before that Great Disagreement, all angels had simply existed in the predecessor of the universe. There was no name for their realm because it had not been segregated from any others. Only the Fall and the War changed that; casting out the traitors required the definition of a place to bar them _from_. So, both Heaven and Hell came to be, each defined by the absence of the other. At the time it had made a good deal of sense, but the implementation of the whole creation thing threw a spanner in the works.

The mortal world had new rules Heaven and Hell did not: pesky inventions like Euclidean geometry, solid matter and linear motion. Mortal existence had _reality_ , time that ran in constant meter and always forward. Heaven and Hell had both adopted a few of these rules for simplicity’s sake over the following, increasingly synchronous millennia. Nevertheless, the disparate circumstances of Earthly creation made movement between it and the ethereal realms… confusing.

To understand Crowley’s current dilemma of exile, you should know that none of the many entrances to Hell are hidden, permanent doorways held open for just anyone to waltz through. Most aren’t doorways in a physical sense at all—more like areas where the fabric of mortal life chafes against the film of the occult and reality goes a bit sideways. Demons can reach out in those places and hop from mortal thread to infernal without much thought. Trouble is, any demon arriving Hell-side through these veiled zones always pops in at the same spot. These areas collectively constitute the “front door,” insofar as hell has one, and are well-watched. If Crowley steps through the reflection of the escalator he used to frequent, he trusts he will be discorporated or otherwise inconvenienced faster than he can say “Heigh-ho.”

Some pathways to hell are actually _persons_.[1] Death, for instance, is a means of conveyance to unearthly realms as well as a helpful guide and fastidious worker. However, Crowley does not know how to get in touch with the fourth horseman outside of the apocalypse. Nor does he particularly want to ask Death to guide him to hell, if he can help it.

Every great once in a while, through human ingenuity or cosmic happenstance, the mortal world manifests a more physical portal to its otherworldly sister realms. These are entirely temporary, powered by carefully scribed angelic runes or demonic seals. Such “doors” don’t all open at the same landing zone, but they make a lot of noise when they appear.[2] More like phone calls than doorways, really. Or doorbells. And Crowley doesn’t think it’s a good idea for him to go knocking. 

So, to sneak into hell, Crowley can only hope to find an unattended, previously opened portal no one has bothered to close, and somehow evade all other demons for the requisite period of time needed to counteract his Illness.

…In short, Crowley has no hope of sneaking into hell.  He resolves to look for one anyway.

* * *

 

[1] Satan also makes the list of persons who are paths. Where he is, heaven is not, and therefore he brings Hell with him. Convenient for him, when he wants to burst from the ground and intimidate the antichrist, but a little passé. Also, much more likely to kill Crowley than help him.  

[2] On a particularly memorable occasion, Aziraphale had used one such circle to speak to the Metatron and later accidentally discorporated himself by stepping through it.

 

* * *

They hadn’t made much of a plan that night, though they made quick work of good wine. Crowley managed to wile and distract his way out of any deeper conversation, plagued by the sneaking suspicion that Aziraphale could tell and had chosen to be merciful. The angel hadn’t wanted to leave him. Flattered by that worry, Crowley had wheedled his best friend into setting out just after midnight with only two additional unprompted healing attempts and an extracted promise to call if anything got worse.

He’d ended the night feeling… comfortable. Almost hopeful, even. Aziraphale’s trick made everything far more bearable, and his concern left Crowley warm and pleased, like an old snake basking in the sun. He’d leant into the feeling, grateful for the chance to enjoy it without the side effects. All the times he’s wallowed too long in the angel’s presence before, all the stomach pains and headaches he’s suffered, the angel never once looked at him like that—like something precious. Like something to worry over.

Could almost make the whole thing worth it, Aziraphale regarding him like that…

Crowley shakes himself free of his own self-destructive, over-romantic pining and turns his mind back to the matter at hand.  

“How did it go?” Of course, the matter at hand involves Aziraphale’s voice over the airwaves of his cellphone, which doesn’t much improve the situation.

“Well. You know. Bit of a nasty piece of work, place like that. How would you call it? Spooky?” He tilts his head to the side, cradling the phone against his ear as he drives with one hand. The Bentley purrs beneath his fingers, speeding happily along the M25 for the third or fourth time that day. He’s started to lose count. 

“It was the location of some very gruesome serial murders in the mid-nineteenth century. Spooky should be the least of it.” The angel sighs, sounding as tired as Crowley feels. He has to remind himself not to close his eyes and imagine Aziraphale there in his shop, frowning down at his reference books and circled by messy piles of written notes. “No hidden doors there though, I take it.”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Right, Right.” The hum of the road rings loud in the quiet as his angel turns pages on the other side of the line. Crowley lets him think and swerves around a plodding lorry.

Ironically, despite all the trouble it’d given him during the apocalypse, the M25 really _has_ helped. Too bad whatever hellish energy he can generate from it can’t outpace the damage he does to himself just talking to Aziraphale.

He hears the angel tsk—listens to the clattering of hardback books handled roughly. “I’m so sorry, dear boy. I just _know_ there has to be a circle somewhere. If we just keep checking…. How do you feel about France?”

“Well. I _am_ in the mood for Champagne. And I hear they have good crepes.”

“Crowley, be serious.”

“As a heart attack, angel,” he jokes, mouth twisted in a bitter smile. He’s spent the last few days circling the M25 and combing the haunted landscape of the greater London area for possible portals to hell. Aziraphale wanted to help, so Crowley asked him to find potential locations.

He thinks the angel meant to help more directly—maybe accompany him on this crazy road trip. They would have had fun together, but some lingering remnant of Crowley’s self-preservation knew it for a bad call. The migraines come and go with higher frequency each passing day, black veins at his chest branching a little further every time he looks. Driving helps, but he can already feel the lethargy settling in his limbs and he knows it can only get worse from here. He thought…. Maybe if he didn’t see Aziraphale as much, he could slow things down. Just enough to figure something out.

He’s starting to think it won’t matter either way.

“…only I thought maybe if any of the old estate remains, some of the man’s ‘alchemical’ experiments might—Crowley are you listening?”

He passes miraculously through a cluster of afternoon traffic, begins his fourth (or fifth) loop of the M25 and feels hopelessness hit him like a physical wall.  

Crowley is probably going to die.

He’s going to die, and he’s wasting the time he has left wandering the countryside with the angel miles and miles away. For what? For the chance at a few more days alone and miserably ill?

He can’t handle this.

“Say Aziraphale, what do you say we put all this down and meet at the Ritz?” A beat of confused silence. He can just picture the look of surprise on Aziraphale’s rounded features. Pain threads his skull, lancing just behind his eyes as longing for his best friend nearly overwhelms him. He just wants Aziraphale to _be here_ more than he wants to breathe.

“Sorry?”

“I said—”

“No, I heard you,” he can hear the angel’s breath, worried and uncertain. “My dear, should we really be thinking about dinner at a time like this? Surely it can wait. At least until later today?” He feels the censure down to his rotten soul, bitter taste in his mouth.

“Right. Yeah. Wait. Sure.”  He lets his increasingly heavy head smack gently against the steering wheel before he remembers he should be watching the road. He knows how ridiculous this must seem. He and Aziraphale used to go decades without seeing each other without issue, but impending mortality makes everything seem so much more urgent.

He just wants to sit at Aziraphale’s side for a while and pretend none of this is happening.

“From the sound of things, I take it you don’t want to go to France,” the angel chides. Crowley pictures the wry twist of his mouth, thinks of him annoyed and too polite to complain. Another blot of pain blossoms at the back of his neck, and eases slowly with each turning of the Bentley’s wheels. “I’m sorry I haven’t given you any good places to check. I really am trying. I just _know_ there has to be something in these books...”

“Hmm,” He agrees aloud, and disagrees in the privacy of his own thoughts.  Aziraphale tuts as if he can hear both.

“I’ll keep looking. In the meantime, have you popped over to Tadfield yet? I think I remember you saying something the other night about the nice young lady there.” Crowley puts himself back together, tries to shut down the panic already squeezing his chest. He can do this. Just has to unstick his forked tongue from the roof of his dry mouth—just has to keep the car moving forward. “Crowley?”

“Sorry, yeah, I’m just...” frightened. He’s frightened, he realizes with a start, and promptly shuts the feeling down. He can’t let Aziraphale know. He has to distract—find his feet again. “By ‘nice young lady,’ do you mean the witch?”

“Well, it’s a bit rude calling her that, don’t you think?”

“Not really. She is, in fact, a witch. Seems quite proud of it actually.”

“Alright, alright—the nice young witch then. Did you swing by and talk to her yet?” Aziraphale’s playful exasperation tugs at the knot of longing in his core and Crowley grips the steering wheel tighter. “I seem to remember you slurring something about leylines and—”

“Angel, I drank a _single_ bottle of wine. I do not ‘slur’ after one bottle. I had perfect control of my faculties.”[3] 

“Yes, very well,” Aziraphale chooses not to argue the point, too familiar with Crowley’s distraction tactics. “Then you must have mentioned it with perfect diction and clarity, but the _girl_ , dear. Did you ever to talk to her?”

He had not. He already had a feeling he knew what she would say, and he hadn’t wanted to face it just yet. He hadn’t figured out what lies to tell her in asking either, whether any wind of what she knew might reach Aziraphale some day.

“Are you sure you should recommend her to me? It’s still ‘Suffer not a witch to live’ with your lot, isn’t it?”

“Crowley, please. I know it took me a while to recognize, but I’d say I cast ‘my lot’ with you a long time ago. Our side, right? I’m sorry I ever made you doubt it.” Crowley has to close his eyes against the weight of those words, so deeply sincere. Barreling down the M25 at twice the suggested speed limit makes this course of action ill-advised. He very nearly veers into an occupied lane and has to overcorrect and swerve wildly to avoid it, blessing himself for a fool the whole while.

“What happened? Are you quite alright?” Aziraphale sounds as frantic as he might if he’d ridden along himself, clutching the handlebar all the while.

“Fine, angel, just—nobody on this damn highway can bloody drive,” his demonic heart races with something like adrenaline, face unnaturally hot. The power of the demonic rune he drives seeps into his aching bones too slowly and he _knows_ this is not sustainable. “You’re right, of course. Our side. I’ll… I’ll go ask around at Tadfield before I call it quits for the day.”

“See that you do. I’ll keep looking from here. I just _know_ I remember reading something about runic circle use in the occult revival of the eighteen hundreds…”

“Sounds riveting,” Crowley shakes his head at Aziraphale’s distraction, familiar smile tugging at his mouth as he takes the next exit and pulls away from London towards Jasmine Cottage. He feels the energy of the M25 peel away instantly, ache already building anew behind his eyes. Wouldn’t be smart, talking to the angel without the _odegra_ rune powering him. “Look, I need to let you go. I’ll let you know if the witch finds anything.”

“Very good, only before you hang up, I wondered… will you come back to the shop tonight?”

He has the phone pulled away from his face, thumb hovering on the end button when the words hit. Every atom in his being wants to say ‘ _yes!’_ (It’s a bad idea if he wants to buy time. He _knows_ it’s a bad idea. He doesn’t care.) “Feeling a craving for wine, angel?” he rasps, throat dry.

“No—well, yes, but that’s not the point. I meant to ask, would you rest over here tonight? Whatever that means to you.” Crowley takes a deep breath and pulls the Bentley over, rolling to a stop. He can’t drive when Aziraphale sounds so close to desperate. “I know you must prefer the comfort of your own flat, but I would feel so much better about this whole mess if I could only keep an eye on you. And I just _know_ there’s something buried in these old books, but I need more time to find it. If you don’t hate the idea, I could—I’ll miracle you a bed to sleep in. I’ll dig out the best scotch, just—”

The angel has no idea how much of a temptation he presents to Crowley’s already weakening will.

He thinks of the memory of soft hands at his aching temple. Aziraphale’s unwavering concern and regard. The promise of freedom from pain—the certainty of a hastened end. “Are you still there, my dear boy? Oh. He’s hung up. I’ll—”

“I don’t know, Aziraphale.” His voice sounds too soft. Too obviously frightened. He has to keep reminding himself his best friend doesn’t _really_ understand what he needs or why—that he absolutely _cannot_ find out. Dinner, Crowley could handle. Dinner doesn’t last—it’s ephemeral. A moment’s diversion. It might cost him in the long run—an indulgent distraction—but if they only go out and part ways afterward, he still hasn’t completely admitted defeat.

If he goes to Aziraphale with the intent to stay, it will be for good.

“Whyever not?”

“I’m just—Still…” His mind races with a thousand arguments: _I’m worried you’ll have to watch me die. I’m terrified I’ll have to leave you behind when I do. I can’t help wondering whether there’s not some way out of this I’m just too blind to see and letting you too close would burn that hope away all the faster. I want to be near you more than I want to live._

So of course, the one that leaves his mouth is, “It’s the plants, Angel. If I don’t get home in time to water them, they’ll wilt.”[4] 

“Oh.” He winces at the hurt in Aziraphale’s voice, then again as it kicks off a poisonous twinge at the base of his skull. “Well, if that’s all, I could—"

“Listen. I need to go, traffic’s no good. I’ll call after and we’ll talk more then, yeah?” Crowley lies brazenly and slams the icon to hang up with style. He lets his hand fall to his lap, leans forward until his forehead thumps against the steering wheel with a dull thud.

Distantly, he notes that his stomach has just begun to churn with nausea.

He hasn’t got a lot of time left. This thing is progressing too quickly. Maybe the buildup of six millennia has finally caught up with him, he doesn’t know. Whatever causes it, with nothing else to be done, he has a choice to make. He can die quickly at Aziraphale’s side and spend everything that he is to keep the angel from ever understanding, or he can try to cut himself from Aziraphale’s life and eke out a miserable existence alone in the hopes that he might stumble upon a miracle before the encroaching end.

Not much of a choice, really.

Mortal terror seizes his lungs and stops his breath. He tears the door of the Bentley open and takes a moment to be sick on the pavement. Stupid, really, to feel so afraid now. He’s sidestepped death twice, at the end of the world and in the court of hell. Only natural that it should catch up to him. What’s the old verse? “ _To every thing there is a season_.”

Besides, he thinks as he wipes dark muck from his mouth with the back of his hand. Maybe he’s losing hope for nothing. Humans have surprised them so many times before. Maybe Anathema has a trick up her sleeve and the energies of hell surface at a ley point he can find.

Maybe.

He doesn’t turn on the radio when he starts the car back up. Starts humming Blue Oyster Cult instead.

* * *

 

[3] He had not. To be fair to him, he was not drunk on the Burgundy, but rather relief. Sudden lack of blinding pain has that effect on some people.

[4] Crowley’s plants would not wilt after a single day without water. They wouldn’t _dare_.

 

* * *

 

Anathema makes him a tea he almost likes and delivers a very pleasant and informative lecture about the science of modern witchcraft. She does surprise him, but not with any hidden knowledge. She simply catches him off-guard when she pegs his wince for a migraine by the way he shies away from the kitchen light.

He leaves without a solution. Hadn’t expected anything different, really. Crowley tries to numb himself to the disappointment and takes comfort in the way Anathema worries after him instead. She tuts and frets and casts a spell that fizzles like poprocks across his over-heated skin. He doesn’t know what it was supposed to do, but it quiets his nausea immediately, so he doesn’t complain.

In the end he learns nothing new, and Anathema sends him off with a book for Aziraphale, two unidentified crystals and an illegally-obtained, half-full bottle of Newt’s prescribed migraine pills.[5]

Nice girl, really. He thinks she and the angel could be good friends. He’ll have to make sure they meet before he goes.

* * *

[5] He could have told her they would do nothing for him, but something of his old itch to tempt others yet remained and he liked the fact that she’d broken the law to dole them out. Whatever else he’d come to love, rebellion still warmed the cockles of his demon soul.

 

* * *

 

Crowley speeds all the way to Soho. He thinks about taking a few extra rounds on the M25 to try to recover even a little of his strength, but decides against it. He just feels shelled out—too tired to experience the fear waiting just out of reach. Nothing remains to chase. No plans. No narrow escapes.

The Bentley slides into its miraculously available parking slot and the engine cuts with a purr.  He watches the warm glow of the light inside Aziraphale’s shop and tries one last time to rally the effort to keep fighting. No way back to hell. No real method of healing other than an eternity rounding the M25, and even that won’t last him forever.

He supposed he could spontaneously fall out of love. Not so hard, right? Just—stop thinking about Aziraphale’s honest kindness, or the focused way he falls into books, or how stupidly adorable he can be when he gets excited about food. Don’t think of the timbre of his voice when he hums along to all the musicals at the theatre, or the way he’s mastered the art of frowning fondly in Crowley’s direction. _Definitely_ don’t think about how deeply he loves the world, or the instant Crowley first knew he was doomed. Don’t think about meeting the only guardian without his sword on the wall of Eden, full of doubt, but so certain of his duty to mankind that he risked the censure of God to preserve it.

…easier to stop thinking all together, honestly.

Crowley gives that an earnest try for a moment, but it’s terribly boring.

He pulls the key from the ignition and presses his hand to the dashboard, ever more certain of his decision. There are a lot of things about this world he loves. Driving. Children. Good music. The way the stars look, scattered across the night sky. Even the bloody ducks. He’ll miss them. It’s just… he can’t help loving Aziraphale too.  

Crowley pushes his sunglasses up, takes a deep breath, and shuts the Bentley door. That’s it. That’s all there is to it—He’ll just….. give up. Wind down like an old pocket watch and slowly cease to tick, for love.

For love of his companion these six thousand long years. For love of the one who defied heaven and did not fall, his clever, _kind_ angel. Well fuck. If he has to go somehow, he could die for worse.

He saunters to the shop door and doesn’t look back.


	4. Too Hard a Knot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Aziraphale understands Crowley's mind too well and his heart not at all. Crowley manages to wrest concessions Aziraphale can't bear to give, and can't deny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! Just a day late, but doing well all things considered. Chapter 5 will have to come quite a bit later, I'm afraid! I'm taking part in the KuroFai Olympics over in the Tsubasa fandom this year, so that'll be the majority of my writing schedule this month. Still! I'm very happy with how this is turning out! and still sticking to the chapter outline so far! (which is a very huge deal for me!)
> 
> Thank you again so, so much for your comments and kind words. They really keep me going. <3

 

* * *

 

In the soft orange light of the rare book dealership in Soho, the Principality of the Eastern Gate (former) sits half-buried by his own books. He doesn’t know them as well as he might like. The human conception of the supernatural had never really held his attention before—not like books of prophecy. As a so-called supernatural creature himself, he found that mortals tended to misunderstand all beings ethereal and occult, and their writings on the subject seemed to him little more than quaint.

Still, he had collected a few such books simply because of his interest as a collector of old literature, and the former antichrist’s miraculous restoration had left the shop in possession of a good deal more occult books than he’d ever possessed before. He hadn’t really read them through—just glimpsed them and smiled to himself at the thought of Adam’s enthusiastic interest in the paranormal.

He reads them now, desperately and with careful consideration for the possibilities of each page. Crowley needs him to try to divine possible portal sites, and he can’t let old snake down. Not now and not ever.

Aziraphale groans in un-angelic disgust as yet another tome fails him. He shuts it with more force than necessary and slides it aside, nearly sending a small stack of similar titles teetering over the edge. Watching impending disaster, he squawks and fumbles to divert it, rapping his knuckles soundly against the table in the process. “Good _grief_ ,” he huffs, glaring at his own traitorously clumsy limbs.

He isn’t generally so ill-composed, but since Crowley missed their regular dinner last Friday, Aziraphale has existed in a near constant state of panic. His hands have raked his short hair into an untamed whirlwind of pale blond, cocoa mug from Friday evening perched and moldering on a nearby shelf. He hasn’t moved save to gather more books in days, ever grateful he’d never picked up Crowley’s sleeping habits. He knows he should try to reign the fear in, but he can’t help it. Not when he doesn’t know for certain what the terrible damage spreading through Crowley’s body even stems from.

The demon seems convinced that if he can only make it to hell, he’ll regenerate the worst of it, but Aziraphale doesn’t know whether to believe that. He can scarcely forget reaching out to heal Crowley’s supposed hangover and running flat into…this… instead. Pain bled from his friend in terrifying waves when he’d thought to look, all of it resonating from a knot of something gnarled and poisonous trapped at the core of his being. He’d tried to untangle it, only to discover it _existed_ _on a metaphysical level_.  Not just an issue with Crowley’s corporeal form he can heal with a hand wave, but damage to his _realest_ self. Aziraphale has never seen such a thing. He’s only heard rumors of the effects of holy water, and once, had a very vivid malicious daydream involving Crowley and a tartan-patterned thermos.

He doesn’t know what this is. Still doesn’t, despite what Crowley claims about Falling. He doesn’t know why Crowley saw fit to try to trick him into thinking it all a mere hangover in the first place; he can’t trust the demon in the wake of that lie. Not completely.

If he didn’t think Crowley honestly needed help getting back to hell, he would turn all his faculties as a researcher to whatever scraps of knowledge on demonic maladies he might find. Fear drives his mind in both directions and leaves him a panicked wreck. That _thing_ will _kill_ his best friend, whatever it actually is. If a visit to hell can reverse it, he must find one as quickly as possible. But if Crowley lied twice, he’ll have wasted precious time for naught. Perhaps if he scans a few books on demons on the side? Surely Crowley wouldn’t mind, but they consist almost entirely of drivel... Maybe he can—

The front door chimes, distant click and swing of the heavy front door. Aziraphale barely looks up from his next book.

“Sorry, we’re closed!” He bellows with distraction, fingers flipping through the index of volume titled, _Hunts and Harrows of London._ He hears no answer, no second ringing of the shop door. Aziraphale huffs and fumbles for a bookmark, a tattered strip of delicate lace he’s kept long after the shirt it once graced had gone out of fashion. He sits the book aside with jerky motions, all too aware he doesn’t have time to fritter about with mortals. Long strides see him quickly into the shop proper. “You’ll have to forgive me forgetting to lock the door, good guest, but I must insist that the shop is—” His voice falters as his eyes alight on the ‘customer.’

“Hello, angel.”

Crowley leans against a bookshelf. Head cocked jauntily to one side, as if he hasn’t a care in the world, and yet… something strange lingers in the air, in the too-loose lines of his form and the tired, resigned smile. Aziraphale takes one look and feels enough worry crawling up his throat to choke him.

“Crowley,” he sighs once he’s caught his breath, an acknowledgement and admonishment in one. He tosses a hand toward the door and wastes a miracle to lock it for certain. “You could have called, if you changed your mind, my dear. I thought you weren’t coming; I haven’t prepared a single thing.”

“Didn’t expect you would,” the demon shrugs, crossing his arms casually across his leaning chest. “I know I should have called—just… forgot. Got a bit tied up watering the plants, you see.”

“Not really.” Aziraphale wishes he could catch a glimpse of Crowley’s eyes behind their covering of dark glass. Memories of that terrible knotted mess of destruction linger, and he can’t help wondering whether Crowley suffers from it even now—how _long_ he must have suffered from it to hone the illusion of health to such an art. Aziraphale wants desperately to fix it—forwards and backwards, now and in the past. Impossible to move through time in reverse, but he knows with a sinking clarity he would bend the very rules of reality to keep Crowley whole. When did his priorities change so wildly?

…Maybe he’s known since those hazy days with his ear to the ground in the seventies, hoping against hope for Crowley to give up and be _safe_ , handing over the holy water because he didn’t know what else to do.

The angel shakes his head free of such thoughts. No sense getting lost in longing with the object of his affection standing in his entryway.  “Did Miss Anathema have any ideas?”

“Oh, Heaps of them. She’s a girl of many ideas, that one.”

“Yes, of course, but I rather meant to ask whether she knew a way downstairs.”

He watches Crowley very carefully, noting the way his mouth purses a moment in indecision, fine line in his brow deepening as he mulls something over. Aziraphale’s heart sinks like a stone the longer Crowley takes to answer. 

“Well, you know,” he drags out each syllable, face turned away. “Not really.  But she cast a couple of spells and sent me off right as rain.”

“’Right as rain’?” Aziraphale spits words so dry they scrape his throat like sandpaper on the way out. “She cast a human spell and somehow healed what neither of us could?” He can’t believe it. He really, honestly can’t: Crowley doesn’t act like a man healed, far too cagey and not nearly smug enough. He only looks… exhausted. Legible in every sagging line of his frame. Even his auburn hair is crushed messily against the bookshelf as Crowley’s head lolls against it for support.

“Humans always have surprised us,” he allows, but Aziraphale knows too well the way the old snake likes to lie best—by saying nothing untrue and avoiding direct agreement or dismissal. “Gave me a book for you to read if you want to know more. I’m afraid I left it in the car though. Have to get it later.” Crowley tries to lead away, distract, dance around the question. He doesn’t want to discuss this, and Aziraphale doesn’t know _why_ except to think—

Desperate fear slinks back into place and Aziraphale reaches out without asking. He must see for himself, of course. If Anathema really fixed this, he’ll have to thank her for the rest of eternity, but he really _must_ know—

Crowley’s hand catches his, just before he can touch the demon’s brow. Aziraphale’s nonexistent hopes burst like so many effervescent bubbles.

“Crowley,” he begs. Panic seizes his breath. He feels the fingers curling around his wrist shake, ever so slightly. He has never felt so terrified in all their many years.

“Play along and ignore it, won’t you? Just for tonight. Just this once.” He knows what Crowley sounds like when he means to tempt. He can recall it perfectly—a hissing, confident tone that seeps like honey through the mind and makes even the stupidest decisions sound pleasant. This is not that. This is…

This is his oldest and dearest friend—his most beloved—vulnerable and _pleading_. This is Crowley in those dark days before the end of the world didn’t happen, scared and uncertain, asking him to run away to the stars.

Aziraphale recalls that episode and cannot help but think that _this_ is how Crowley sounds when he fears his own end.

“You frighten me, Dearest.” He doesn’t need to see behind Crowley’s glasses to catch the way the demon winces, full body jerking for just an instant of weakness. He can’t stand it. He overpowers Crowley’s tentative grasp with no trouble, lets his fingers brush against sweat-dampened temple.

“I am a Demon,” Crowley tries to smile, but the expression looks worn thin.  “part of my job description to frighten you, really.” Crowley wants so badly to distract him, but Aziraphale cannot look away. Not from pain like this. That same, horrible knot of something meets his questing power, its branches spread even further than last time.

“Crowley we can’t just _ignore_ this. I—I can’t—” Whatever this is, it will kill him. It weakens him with every passing second, and Aziraphale can do _nothing_ but block the pain receptors. He does so with tears in his eyes. Crowley leans into his touch like a plant toward sunlight.

“I could ignore anything if you keep doing that.”

“Well… don’t! Crowley, I don’t understand. I thought—you said you didn’t plan to go without a fight.”   _You can’t leave me_ , he doesn’t say with words, but it shouts from his very soul, in the moisture of his eyes and the trembling of his chin. [1] 

“And we have been fighting. For days, Angel. We can keep—” He can’t finish the sentence. He won’t lie, not in this. Crowley has already given up. Aziraphale chokes on the beginning of a sob, his mind racing. He can’t—Crowley _can’t_ just—Crowley is the one who kept fighting for a solution to the end of the world, who convinced him to fight when he still didn’t understand where his own loyalties truly lie. Why is he… why only _now_ , when the world stretches unending before them? “I’m sssorry.” The demon mirrors his position, thin fingers raised to wipe away the few traitorous drops of liquid that escape him.

“Don’t be sorry. I don’t have any use for it.” He turns his despair to anger, ducks away from Crowley’s fleeting touch and moves both hands to brace pointed elbows instead. He leans close, staring into lens-covered eyes. If he squints, he can see straight through to gold and snake-like irises. “Promise me,” he demands. “Promise me you won’t give up.” He urges Crowley with every ounce of his being, frantic for those eyes to meet his and set his mind at ease.

They do not.

“Aziraphale, can we just… drink an entire case of old wine and argue the relative merits of dead playwrights? Please. Just for tonight.” Exhaustion pours from his dearest friend in waves. His fingers clench, too tight, around Crowley’s upper arms, but the demon doesn’t wince. He sags into the grip instead, as if he can scarcely keep to his feet. “Just for tonight. No Hell, No questions. We can argue in the morning, but—won’t you let me pretend for a few hours?”

Aziraphale should say, ‘no.’ They don’t know how much time remains; the damage spreading through Crowley’s form worsens at a rate he doesn’t understand. He should push harder—try to goad his eternal match into finding his courage and will to keep fighting. He should. He _should_.

He can’t.

“You—” he chokes, caught in the confusion of his own emotion. He is _furious_ with Crowley, and worried for him. Halfway to mourning his loss and somehow still happy to see him. “Alright. Alright. One night. Chardonay and Shakespeare and anything else you ask of me.” The demon stares, as if he can’t believe what he hears. His knees really _do_ buckle, and only Aziraphale’s grip keeps him from falling to the floor. “Oh, dear!”

“Sorry, I’m—Angel, you don’t know what it means to me. I’m…” Crowley looks so blasted _happy_. As if by agreeing to this self-destructive madness Aziraphale had handed him the greatest gift of all. He can’t stand it.

“You’re right! I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what _any_ of it means. But I do know— _you_ should know—even if you give up on yourself, _I won’t_. Not ever!” Anything. Anything at all to keep his equal by his side. He wants Crowley nearby, _covetously_ with a fervor that used to frighten him. He doesn’t let it now. He has no time to.

The look his demon shoots him in return nearly breaks his heart.

“Right,” Crowley sighs, worried and sympathetic. Aziraphale wants to scream. At him. At the world. “Angel, it’s been too long since we last drank, and I’ve just seen the worst rendition of Twelfth Night I think London’s ever mustered. Hand me a bottle or two and forget it with me, won’t you?”

Crowley has proposed a script here, set the role for Aziraphale to follow. It does not call for him to swallow bitter tears and grit his teeth. It does not call for the barest moment of weakness, dipping into the demon’s space to press their brows together in a stolen gesture of comfort. It has no room for the deep, stuttering breath he steels himself with, or the seconds he spends, holding his stupid, perfect, most beloved upright and praying to _someone_ that this will not kill him. It allows him only,

“Of course, my dear boy. Though I daresay Twelfth Night is not his best work to begin with.”

Crowley smiles like the rising sun, all affection and relief. Something twists sharply in Aziraphale’s chest. _Please_ , he prays, a mantra beneath the playful banter that follows and the steadily increasing drunkenness of the night, _Please don’t take him away from me. Not him. Not now. Please._

 

* * *

 

[1] A good thing for both of them Aziraphale has already re-blocked Crowley’s sense of pain because the demon’s loving heart aches to see his angel so distraught, and consequently so does the rest of him.

 

* * *

 

 

It is a well-known fact (among humans) that love is selfish.

Now wait, you might think, didn’t we establish that Love is selfless, and virtuous, and thereby poison to demons? Yes. We did. And it is! Or it can be. But it is also selfish. Bone deep, achingly, maddeningly selfish. Certainly, love can play into envy, jealousy, and all crimes of passion, but even outside those unfortunate occurrences it has a selfishness all its own.

In the end, perhaps, it comes down to a difference in emphasis.  

Selfless love says, “I want the best for you,”

Selfish love says, “I want the best for you,”

If you find this difference difficult to parse, you land among good company. Most beings ethereal and occult can’t be bothered to fiddle with the whole selfish/less dichotomy. Demons decided soon after falling that the whole thing must be a virtue if it poisoned them so readily and left it there. Angels had a harder time settling on one side, but after Jesus’s scripture instructed all to love one another, they also decided on virtue. [2]

Aziraphale has not found it so easy to forget love’s vices.  He remembers the rumors of angels falling for love. He used to agonize over it, terrified every time Crowley did something kind and set his heart skipping. He had frightened himself with the thought of falling, ignored his own feelings for nearly six millennia, and has spent the last few decades waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Because he _has_ fallen in love. Selfishly. Terribly, terribly selfishly. The sort of love that aches for Crowley’s presence, makes him long to demand a place in the demon’s life, doesn’t let him enjoy a single drink or night at the theater without wishing he had Crowley there to share it with.

He knows he can’t act on it. Even after he stopped jumping at shadows for fear of falling, he knew it could never come to anything. Demons don’t love, he thinks. [3] Crowley just…. can’t feel the same way. Not his fault. It’s—fine! Really. Plenty of folks in the world live perfectly happy, fulfilled lives without romantic love. No one really _needs_ it. He doesn’t _need_ it. He just— _wants_ Crowley to love him back. So very, very badly.   

He’s not a very good angel, wanting so much.

He begs for a way to save Crowley’s life, knows the depths of his own selfishness, and cannot bring himself to care.

* * *

[2] The answer, of course, that the truest, most perfect love contains both elements of virtue and vice, would break most celestial and demonic minds. For all their might the forces of heaven and hell often find themselves defeated by worldly truths. Things like grey morality and moral relativity can confuse them for hours—a fact Crowley has used to his advantage in more than one confrontation. 

[3] Perhaps you know better, dear reader, but Aziraphale does not. Heaven has one _hell_ of a propaganda department.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 


End file.
